1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to communications for electronic computer systems, and more specifically to a system and method for notifying a user that selected events have occurred within the system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As computer systems and data communications become increasingly widespread, more and more users are able to perform a high percentage of their daily tasks over various communication networks. For example, many users are able to obtain-key information in a timely manner through the use of interconnected software and hardware systems.
Because of the great wealth of information available, it often becomes time consuming for a user to keep up with items and events of interest. In some cases, a dedicated window may be included on a user""s desktop to provide information about high priority items. For example, a streaming stock quote ticker may be resident on a user""s desktop to enable them to keep up with selected stock market information. However, the number and variety of sources of potentially interesting information is so large that this type of dedicated approach can work for only a small number of sources.
Often, a user is required to access a database or other source of information in order to determine whether an event of interest has occurred. This can be relatively time consuming, and often results in undesirable delays if the user is unable to check the required sources often enough.
Another approach is to automatically send notifications directly from an application to a user when selected events occur. This requires coding of the necessary handling and routing modules within the application. This can become a significant burden from the application writer""s standpoint, and can lead to inconsistencies in the way message notifications are presented to users.
It would be desirable to provide a system and method for automatically notifying users upon the occurrence of selected events. It would further be desirable for such notification system to be able to handle different types of events and present notifications to users in different ways.
In accordance with the present invention, a system and method for providing notifications to a user includes an alert manager. The alert manager receives notifications of events incurring within various executing applications, and utilizes rules to determine when alert notifications should be sent to one or more specified users. In addition, operation of batch jobs can determine changes in state of selected data, which generate events for the alert manager in addition to those generated directly by an executing application. Alert notifications to users can be sent to the user via any of several communications channels.